Election 2025: Andrew Hastie’s views on women in combat ‘untenable’, says Richard Marles

Labor says opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie should be stripped of his portfolio after he refused to walk away from past comments on women in combat roles.

Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie is refusing to walk away from past comments arguing that women shouldn’t serve in combat roles. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

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Labor says opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie should be stripped of his portfolio after he refused to walk away from past comments arguing that women should be barred from serving in combat roles in the Australian ­Defence Force.

Mr Hastie, a former SAS captain, told Sky News in 2018: “My personal view … is the fighting DNA of a close combat unit is best preserved when it’s exclusively male.”

The seven-year-old comments re-emerged after the Liberal Party’s candidate for Whitlam, Benjamin Britton, was disendorsed for saying the ADF “need to remove females from combat corps”.

Peter Dutton on Tuesday said women should be able to serve “in any role that they wanted to serve in” in the ADF, and that Mr Hastie’s view “is the same as mine”.

Peter Dutton with disendorsed Liberal candidate for the NSW seat of Whitlam Benjamin Britton. Picture: Liberal Party

Mr Hastie’s spokeswoman declined to say whether the MP had changed his mind on women’s suitability for combat.

“Mr Hastie’s comments about combat roles in the Australian Defence Force were made more than seven years ago based on his own experience serving in the Special Air Service Regiment,” she said.

“There is no intent to change personnel policy in the Australian Defence Force regarding combat roles.

“The Coalition, however, will insist on the highest physical and mental standards for those who serve in our combat units, as (they) must have the best fighting capability to defend our nation.”

About 460 women are in permanent army combat roles.

Defence Minister Richard Marles said Mr Hastie had failed a key test, revealing that he was unsuitable for the job.

“It is untenable to have a defence minister in Australia who does not believe that women should be serving in combat roles,” Mr Marles said.

“If Peter Dutton is applying these standards to his candidates, such as the one for Whitlam he sacked, why isn’t he applying them to Andrew Hastie?”

Defence Minister Richard Marles at the Avalon Airshow. Picture: David Caird

Mr Britton was dumped by the Liberal Party over his past comments to podcaster Joel Jammal arguing that women needed to be “removed from combat” roles to “fix our Defence Force”.

“Their hips are being destroyed because they can’t cope with the carrying of the heavy loads and the heavy impacts that’s required for doing combat-related jobs,” he told a podcast last year.

“Why would you want to send your beautiful women? Your females, the ones that are the backbone of your society. Your society only exists because of women. Why would you want to sacrifice them in war, on the altar?”

He also blasted “diversity and equity quotas, and these woke Marxist ideologies” for under­mining the ADF.

Mr Britton defended his views on Sydney radio station 2GB.

“My position is the same as ­Andrew Hastie, the shadow minister for defence and the great (late senator) Jim Molan, that women should not serve specifically in combat roles, specifically in the army itself,” he said.

The Liberal Party said Mr Britton had been dropped as its endorsed candidate for Whitlam because of “views expressed which were not previously disclosed and are inconsistent with the party’s position”.